Provincial Empowerment
Another way out of Iraq’s political quagmire could involve a decentralization of power. Broadly speaking, a lot of Iraq’s political parties are in it for the power and the money and that power is in the hands of the central government. However if Iraq’s provincial governments were given more power, this might force local politicians to be more responsive to the needs of voters. It would also mean less power and fewer resources for Baghdad’s MPs, therefore, hopefully, less for them to squabble over.
Prime Minister al-Abadi seemed to think this was a good idea and pledged to apply the related legislation, Law 21, and start transferring power to Iraq’s provinces. However this plan didn’t work out when the various ministries refused to hand over power to the provincial governments, saying that the local politicians didn’t have enough experience or ability to deal with the job, thereby keeping the power (and the budgets) in their own hands. It’s a similar roadblock as the one being created by various Ministries now, as al-Abadi tries to hand over power to technocrats.
Once again, this is more about the way Iraqi politics are conducted, than the political system. Many good ideas have been suggested, some have even been trialled but, thanks to a desire for power, privilege and money and an apparent lack of desire to serve the Iraqi people, none of these plans have worked out.
As Amer Hassan Fayed, a professor of political science at the University of Baghdad puts it: “It is not the parliamentary system that is flawed in Iraq. The political crisis is due to Iraq’s politicians and the way they work with the system,” he argues, “not the system itself.”
Comments are closed.